Leonard A. Gould: 1927 - 2012

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Thursday, September 13, 2012 - 11:00am

Leonard A. Gould, professor of electrical engineering, emeritus in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science died on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2012 at the age of 85. Professor Gould became a member of the MIT faculty in 1953 and retired in 1997.

Lenard Gould received the SB and ScD degrees from MIT in 1948 and 1953 respectively. His research interests included control problems and dynamic modeling in industrial systems (chemical, nuclear, electrical power, and rotating machinery), sampled-data control systems, adaptive estimation, and the time series analysis of financial data.

Prof. Gould worked through the 1940s and 50s in the area of process control as applied to the solution of chemical control problems. His book Chemical Process Control was published in 1969.

As Associate Director of the Electronic Systems Laboratory, the ESL, (previously known as the MIT Servomechanisms Laboratory) from 1971 to 1976, Prof. Gould continued his interest in advanced feedback-control theory. The ESL provided a new cooperative focus on research and education between staff and students from MIT's Department of Chemical Engineering and Prof. Gould's group in Electrical Engineering.

Prof. Gould was a Fellow of the IEEE since 1973. As a frequent consultant to industry on a wide range of control applications, Prof. Gould published many technical articles in that field.

Leonard Gould is survived by his wife Emma of Dedham, nephew Neal Spevack of New York and Sue Graze of Austin, Texas. Graveside services were held on Tuesday, Sept. 11 at the Beit Olam Cemetery in Wayland, MA.